So what ya'll think so far? I plan on hopping on when my classes are done for the evening.

I let my ambition get the best of me, and, well, I beat the story last night. Also, fuck whoever decided that the warthog needed to be louder than an atomic bomb.

Overall, there's a lot of stuff I reallllllllllly don't like about the art style in the game. Marines look weird, pelican redesign looks dopey,

Spoiler

the broadsword doesn't even look like it belongs in the game

; it just seems like they made things far less interesting and made things significantly more cartoon-y. Can't say I'm a fan.

Aside from that, the story telling this time around is top notch. The pacing, the tone; it all works well. Even though the story is, at times, cringe worthy caliber. Maybe it's because I long for Halo's of days old; but this game is far from my favorite of the bunch. It is good, and it is unlike any Halo I have ever played. But it is more irregular for the sake of being different in some spots, rather than for the benefit of the narrative.

Just finished it. It was good, but I set my expectations low, as I have with all Halo games since the Halo 2 incident. Unbelievable visuals, decent story, cool bad guy. I think it was lacking the memorable missions that Halo 1 and Halo 3 had, which play a huge factor in overall campaigny awesomeness. I felt the same way about Reach's campaign -- decent missions, but nothing that made me say, "That was awesome, I can't wait to play this level again." Nothing really comes close to Silent Cartographer, Assault on the Control Room, The Ark, or The Covenant. Definitely better than Reach, but does not surpass Halo 1 in overall campaign quality, or Halo 3 in overall fun factor. Also, the new enemies aren't as fun to fight or designed as well (gameplay-wise, not visually) as the Covenant.

Although I know practically nothing about the extended fiction outside of The Fall of Reach, I could tell a lot of the stuff in the story tied directly into the books, which is something I can passively appreciate. Some of the stuff that was happening was quite interesting, and I'm curious about where the trilogy will go.

Overall, there's a lot of stuff I reallllllllllly don't like about the art style in the game. Marines look weird, pelican redesign looks dopey,

Spoiler

the broadsword doesn't even look like it belongs in the game

; it just seems like they made things far less interesting and made things significantly more cartoon-y. Can't say I'm a fan.

I feel the complete opposite about the cartoony-ness. The series has been incredibly cartoony and goofy since Halo 2. The visuals, the character models, and the animations alone make this game look far less cartoony than Halo has ever looked before. There's some merit to your point about the redesigns of certain things, but not in terms of cartoony-ness. Some things have more of a generic sci-fi look to them rather than something that looks like it truly belongs in the Halo universe -- the same can be said about the music.

- Terrible Jackal and Grunt redesigns
- Missions are all stupid awesome, but as said before, there's no Silent Cartographer or The Ark
- I never want to see switches ever again
- Covenant feel like a crutch or safety net - and much more heavily used than expected
- Proms are introduced later into the game than expected
- Sounds design generally is easily the best in the series so far
- Very rewarding plot for any returning or fiction fan
- The core mechanics have been nailed down and then some
- Music is pretty rad
- Missions, outside of button abuse, are pretty diverse and interesting
- Quite a few "wow" moments with the environments and visuals
- Easily one of the best looking games on the 360
- No Johnson

Completed it, similar to Blaze my expectations were set quite low, but yeah, pretty damn good. The only real issue I had was that there was alot of "your objective is just over there, but first go click on three buttons littered around a bunch of very similar geometry". Suppose it's not quite as bad as backtracking but it started to get alittle annoying after a while.
Oh also, I only have silver at the moment (might pick up a months worth of Gold on Friday), what's the deal with solo/splitscreen Spartan Ops being Gold only? Along the same lines, why do I need to go to Waypoint (Gold only) to view terminal videos? Halo 3 could handle people viewing them in game. It's not a huge deal, but it's alittle slimey of MS to be forcing people to get Gold to access single player content.

Yeah, I did but I think I'm gonna let my little brother have it, he's more into online games than I am nowadays. I'm fine waiting till I can get down to the shops, just thought the Spartan Ops thing was weird... though I'll admit going straight to rage mode when I first noticed, heh.
Completely unrelated: Really liking this new composer, the main menu music is lovely.

Overall, I think this is a top 2 Campaign for the series (probably after Halo 1). I think every level is memorable and has it's moments, although I would say the last 2 levels are the weakest. It's cool when you get to Composer and see Installation 03, but then the ring becomes an afterthought and you just move on to something else which is strange.
The game is a feast to Halo story junkies like myself, but even for me I feel like they through way too much at you at once. In a single cutscene you might get 4 or 5 different revelations which are all big and new information. It can be hard to keep up and then you also don't get as much impact from each new story revelation because you have several others to water it down.
The ending, well I'm still trying to see how I feel about that. I don't like the idea of Cortana dying at all. But it was more about how it was done, I thought the whole thing with Cortana using hardlight to grab Didact and then also using hardlight to protect the Chief was a little silly. I still don't understand how Cortana doing that would end her, maybe Voc or Cocop can clear that up for me.

still don't understand how Cortana doing that would end her, maybe Voc or Cocop can clear that up for me.

I thought the Didact fried the console containing her data chip (and her "core" along with it), leaving the rampant sub-divided personalities in the Forerunner terminals that she used to overload the system with.

It wasn't until the ship blew up did she die for good and apparently her last act was saving the Chief from the explosion somehow. Space magic.

I see plenty of opportunities to bring her back for the next game or whenever they want. It's hardly final. Same goes with Didact too, he fell down into the swirly bright light after being stunned by a grenade. Both will be back.

I literally said "that's bullshit" when the Chief didn't die from blowing up a nuclear warhead in his hands. There is literally no way Cortana could've protected him at that range. Aside from this the story, to me, felt weak and fan-boyish. Also, I've hated the idea of the whole "relationship" thing between Cortana and Chief for a while. It comes off as creepy and weird. At the end of the day she's still an AI, and the Chief is a 300 pound virgin behemoth who's only purpose is to finish the fights. It came off as uncharacteristic to have him pining after an artificial construct.

Spoiler

"Don't you ever let her go." - Johnson FUCKING CRINGE

Aside from this, Del Rio as a character had absolutely no reason to act like a total dick-hole; and if we're going to get nit picky here? There's no feasible way for him to be a captain of Earth's greatest space faring accomplishment when he's such an ass that his own crew wont follow his orders. As far as character development is concerned, he had none and he needed a lot more. It came off as the only reason he was such an asshole was because 343i wanted people to think, "Oh I know you ain't talking to M. Cheif that way!"
Finally, the art direction and storyline just feel... uninspired. Specifically the fact that a lot of the campaign feels like it was taken directly from other Halo games, in some cases exactly so (here's looking at you gondola mission). And it feels like there are literally too many call backs in the game because of it. It's like someone screaming every level "HEY DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN YOU ALREADY DID THIS?!?!" If I wanted to rehash levels, I'd play Spartan Ops.
Also, it is some weak shit that the Covenant ally with the Prometheans after only ONE level of group fighting. It felt rushed as if it was an excuse for the fact the Prometheans aren't that fun to fight.
Good side notes though:
- Lasky is a fucking bro.
- Master Chief's armor.
- Gun play.

Overall, I think this is a top 2 Campaign for the series (probably after Halo 1). I think every level is memorable and has it's moments, although I would say the last 2 levels are the weakest.

The only awesome and memorable part of the Campaign for me was taking down the Lich; it's even slightly cooler than taking down a Scarab in some ways (plus being reminiscent of Truth and Reconciliation albeit at a much smaller scale was nice). But memorable missions as a whole? Awesome encounters with multiple potential paths through them? Not so much. The game itself is fairly linear with only an illusion of choice that basically comes down to: an objective to the left and an objective to the right (which is usually just destroying a glowing ball or pressing a button) -- the only choice is picking which one to press X on first.

Halo 3 was at the opposite end of the spectrum. There are so many memorable missions and encounters -- even small ones like sneaking through ventilation shafts to drop behind a group of Brutes, or at the end of The Ark where a Brute Chieftain challenges you to a duel. There are none of those little moments or choices in Halo 4 from what I've seen. Nothing comes close to a double scarab battle or taking down ghosts, wraiths, and a scarab with only a squad of rocket marine-equipped mongeese. What missions and encounters do I remember from Halo 4? Um, that part where you're flying a little spaceship through the Death Star because it's unlike other missions. That's memorable because it's different though, not memorable because it was an experience worth remembering.

I can ignore all the minor problems with the campaign and the story not making sense at times. I can deal with being beaten over the head by a love story between two not-entirely-human beings. But I cannot ignore the mission design lacking something at a fundamental level.